It’s a pleasure to hear that so many key people in Colorado’s craft beer industry recognize the substantial value in not selling out. Todd Usry of Breckenridge Brewing is completely right: “I think there is some serious authenticity that is lost, and that the brand loses.” This gets to a crucial point about the success of Colorado craft beer, and other “nested” markets (a market for local products within the wider market). Nested markets provide customers with value that they cannot find in national/international commercial enterprises: products that we value higher, as well as a more enjoyable consumer/seller experience. For example, the head brewer at Elk Mountain Brewing Co. offered my wife and me a tour of the brewery. This was as valuable to us as the beer itself (and the beer is fantastic).

Coloradans and outsiders (like myself) are passionate about Colorado craft beer. Selling out detracts from its value.

Nick Lightfoot,Parker

This letter was published in the March 1 edition.

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There is no conflict between getting big government out of our lives and holding the educational establishment accountable for performance and spending. While there is merit in modest local flexibility — statewide standards are appropriate in K-12 education — what Colorado should minimize is federal involvement in our kids’ schools. Federal meddling in education is inappropriate and unconstitutional. The Department of Education, with its $70 billion budget, is the epitome of big government; it should be abolished. But schools will remain a government responsibility for the foreseeable future and therefore it is incumbent on those who control the purse strings to ensure that education is done effectively and efficiently.

Part of maximizing effectiveness is giving teachers the proper incentives through tenure reform and merit pay, two policies that teachers unions — which care only for their own income and power — aggressively oppose.

Having credible state-level regulation of schools is an important job of Colorado’s legislature. Doing that job is not at all contradictory of Republicans’ desire to keep the federal government and its stifling, one-size-fits-all approach as far away from our classrooms as possible.

Ross G. Kaminsky,Nederland

This letter was published in the March 1 edition.

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Regarding Earl Staelin’s Feb. 15 guest commentary (“Colorado needs a public bank”), letter-writer Daniel Bryce writes, “In his grab bag of supposed benefits, Staelin neglected to mention how it will help all those poor cronies, politicians and fat cats get control of even more of your money.” Well, the state already has your tax dollars. A state bank, a division of state government, will keep the dollars in Colorado instead of sending them off to Wall Street where the state must effectively borrow them back when it needs funds for large infrastructure projects. With a state bank, Colorado will be borrowing from itself, keeping the interest, and thereby permitting lower taxes.

Maynard (Mike) Moe,Denver

This letter was published in the March 1 edition.

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Christopher Flavelle cites small government as a cause of urban distress. He uses statistics to prove that metropolitan government will solve all the ills of urban life.

Each of his examples demonstrates the vacuity of the statistics he cites. He notes as the benefits of metropolitan governments faster growth, easier planning, increased productivity and the ability to bypass the “vested interests of politicians and residents.”

Aside from the threat of failures being metropolitan instead of local, there is that thing about the “vested interests of … residents.” It calls up memories of the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” in which HAL 9000 explains the need to eliminate humans.

If cities are only investments, Flavelle is right. If cities are for people, he is dead wrong.

Tom Morris,Denver

This letter was published in the March 1 edition.

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In 1969, George Washington High School’s yearbook staff thought Burns Park was significant in the lives of GW students, making the decision to feature some sculptures in the park in dramatic color photographs in the introductory pages.

If teenaged citizens can perceive the inspiration of such a park in otherwise fairly nondescript surroundings in 1969, surely more mature citizens in 2015 can grasp reasons to keep what Joanne Ditmer calls “visual solace.”

Carolyn McIntosh Plummer,Arvada

This letter was published in the March 1 edition.

Thanks to Joanne Ditmer for her articulate, clear voice that continues to speak to the importance of preserving and enhancing our precious Denver parks.

Georgia Garnsey,Denver

This letter was published in the March 1 edition.

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Spectacular Trappers Lake and the surrounding Flat Tops Wilderness Area are recognized as the “Cradle of Wilderness” after inspiring U.S. Forest Service employee Arthur Carhart to use the area as an example of public land that should be preserved for all to enjoy.(Scott Willoughby, The Denver Post)

As a conservative conservationist, I oppose a takeover of federal public lands. These taxpayer- and citizen-owned public lands belong to all citizens. The attempt by special interests to take these lands, under the guise of state “management,” may represent the largest special-interest, big-money land grab since the days of the robber barons in the late 19th century.

And the land grab attempt is definitely not conservative. None other than President Ronald Reagan once remarked: “What is a conservative after all but one who conserves — our countryside, our rivers and mountains, our plains and meadows and forests. This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children.”

Steve Bonowski,Lakewood

This letter was published in the Feb. 28 edition.

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Josh Libey, sous chef at Charcoal, prepares an order earlier this month. At least six restaurants in Denver have dropped OpenTable and switched to upstart Eveve to save money on online reservations. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

Your article about the Eveve competition to OpenTable for securing restaurant reservations struck a sour note here. We eat out more often than anyone we know, and we’ve used OpenTable for many years because it lists all the Denver-area restaurants open for online reservations — more than 600, at last count. Eveve has no central website listing their cooperating restaurants — you have to go to an individual restaurant’s website. The old adage “Out of sight, out of mind” certainly applies here. If we don’t see a restaurant listed on OpenTable, we’ll go somewhere else, and pretty soon we’ll forget those other restaurants even exist.

Unless Eveve opens their own central reservation website, those restaurants opting out will lose our business and the business of other good customers.

Larry Dunning,Denver

This letter was published in the Feb. 28 edition.

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Letter-writer Ken Connell mentions that clean energy such as solar and wind power are now up to the job. What Connell forgot to mention is what is to happen when the wind doesn’t blow or when the sun doesn’t shine. There is a clean-energy solution to this problem: nuclear energy. But most people are afraid of the word nuclear.

Dick Morroni,Denver

This letter was published in the Feb. 28 edition.

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U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald delivers a statement and answers reporters’ questions outside of his department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. McDonald has apologized for misrepresenting his military record by telling a homeless veteran in California that he had served in the U.S. Special Forces. (Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images)

It seems curious to me that the administrative action taken by the Department of Veterans Affairs regarding its multiple scandals generally results in minor, if any, discipline to the offenders. Properly addressing the actions of those responsible for hardships they have caused many veterans and associated problems for the VA would be a good place to start.

VA Secretary Robert McDonald has a tough job to do — clean up the scandal-plagued VA. That’s kind of difficult to do when you start out by deceiving the very same people you are supposed to help by “embellishing” your own military record.

Lawrence E. Barnes,Littleton

This letter was published in the Feb. 28 edition.

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Three-year-old Austin Strasser died after being struck by a car in Denver’s Bonnie Brae neighborhood. (Photo provided by Connie Hamman)

I recently sat in the Denver Public Library’s Eugene Field branch at University Boulevard and Ohio Avenue in the Bonnie Brae neighborhood. The window looked out on the flowers laid in memory of the 3-year-old who recently died after being struck by a car. In five minutes, I saw three cars run a red light.

People, you are in a huge, heavy, hurtling hunk of metal. Getting where you are going two minutes later won’t matter. Please slow down — and quit using your phones while driving. Please.

Mathew Smith,Denver

This letter was published in the Feb. 28 edition.

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Guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 150 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address, day and evening phone numbers, and may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.

To reach the Denver Post editorial page by phone: 303-954-1331

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